Computers are becoming necessary tools for conducting meetings at conference rooms. That is, relevant meeting materials are now provided as computer-readable files. As such, file management programs (e.g., Windows Explorer™) are often used to search and display such materials
However, it may be difficult to simultaneously display a large amount of materials and their relations in the conventional explorer or programs. Further, it is also difficult for users to understand them intuitively since the folders and the files are typically provided in a hierarchical manner. Also, in order to display a material relating to the meeting at hand, the users may be required to navigate a folder where the corresponding material is located.
A meeting procedure support system for visualizing relevant materials has been developed and used in order to accommodate various items from a plurality of users. However, when a new item is introduced in such a system, many materials need to be displayed together in real time to facilitate the attendees understanding since the new item may be relevant to such materials. In other words, it is desirable to display the current item, related materials and their relations in a timely manner such that the attendees can easily understand them at once without resorting to any complicated exploring procedures.
Further, the related materials may include various types of materials such as an image file, a video file, a sound file, a table file, text file, etc. Thus, there is a need to save and display such materials, as well as to structure the meeting at hand in view of such materials and their relationships to each other.
A display method is also needed for enabling the attendees sitting around a meeting table to conveniently understand the contents of the meeting procedure, especially the read text information.
There is a need for a system adapted to provide functions necessary for meeting procedures, which can intuitively and comprehensively display the status of the meeting and operate the display elements by using an intuitive interface requiring only minimized operations (not complicated interface).